How To Customize Your 404 Error Page In Squarespace

Did you know you can customize your 404/Error page on Squarespace? If you’re thinking “what’s the big deal?” then let me break it down for you real quick.

If someone lands on your site and sees the standard Squarespace 404 page…..

They’re going to feel annoyed. They clicked over to your site for a reason and you just let them down.

Since they came your way looking for a solution to something, that means it’s actively on their brain and they’re on the hunt for an answer. Most likely they’ll just go back to Google or Pinterest to continue their search, and you’re essentially forgotten about.

Not to mention, if you’ve got a sales funnel in place for your products or services, you just missed an opportunity to make more money (and friends!).

Plus....just look how boring the standard 404 page is (womp womp).

How does someone even get to a 404 page?

The name of an existing page has been changed (mybilliedesigns.com/blog to mybilliedesigns.com/journal)

Existing content has been moved to another page (real life example: I used to detail all my services on one page at mybilliedesigns.com/services but earlier this year decided to break them down invididually at mybilliedesigns.com/brand-identity + mybilliedesigns.com/website-design)

So someone has landed on your 404 page because of an error, and you need to fix it fast.

I recommend keeping the customized content super simple. Here are my top suggestions:

Sound like a human being. Make sure to infuse a bit of your personality into your copy so people who aren’t already familiar with your business have a chance to get to know you.

Be helpful. Think about why someone would be on your site in the first place (for me, someone is most likely looking for Squarespace or design help), then make that the focus of your page.

Be succinct and to the point. Give your visitors only 1 or 2 things to do (like searching your site to find what they were looking for, browsing through your blog posts or signing up for your email opt-in).

view this video for a quick walk through of how to set up your custom 404 page: